Climate Change Loonies Are at it Again

They call themselves the National Wildlife Federation. We can pretty much tell what kind of wildlife they like best, because their global warming propaganda is batshit crazy. Here is their latest core dump.

Mascot Madness: How Climate Change Threatens School Spirit

Urgent Action Needed to Protect Real-Life Species Behind Iconic College Mascots

03-11-2014 // Miles Grant

With the annual NCAA college basketball tournaments set to begin, a new National Wildlife Federation report details how the climate crisis is hurting the real-life species that are mascots for many of America’s college athletic programs. Climate change is the most serious environmental threat today to many animals and plants and urgent action is needed at all levels, according to Mascot Madness: How Climate Change is Hurting School Spirit.

We have a new version of ‘March Madness’: Extreme weather fueled by climate change, deeper droughts, and intensifying wildfires," said Dr. Doug Inkley, senior scientist with the National Wildlife Federation and lead author of Mascot Madness. “From wolverines to gators, species that have spent countless centuries adapting a home court advantage are now watching the rules of the game changed before their eyes by industrial carbon pollution. If we’re going to turn climate change into a Cinderella story, we need to act now."

Mascot Madness looks at the best available science on how climate change is impacting many of America’s best-known mascots, from familiar species like bears and bison to exotic cats like lions and tigers. Warmer temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and rising sea levels are altering habitat in ways that can affect animals’ diet, range and behavior:

• Wolverines (University of Michigan) rely on deep snowpack for building dens to raise their young and may be declared a threatened species as the climate continues to warm.
• Terrapins (Universtiy of Maryland) and Alligators (University of Florida) face reproductive threats. When alligators overheat, more eggs hatch as males. In contrast, terrapins produce more females in hotter temperatures. Imbalances in sex ratios like these can be a threat to sustaining healthy populations.
• The entire range of the critically-endangered red wolf, a real-life inspiration for the North Carolina State Wolfpack, is found at only three feet elevation or less, making them extremely vulnerable to rising sea levels and hurricanes.
• Buckeyes (Ohio State) are threatened by stronger storms, deeper droughts, and more intense heat waves fueled by climate change and are being pushed to migrate north—into rival territory in Michigan.

The National Wildlife Federation’s Mascot Madness report is a creative tool for getting past the noise and engaging people about the real-life impacts of climate change. There is no questioning how serious the numbers are on rising sea levels and global temperatures," said Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD). "But it is also important to take that to the next level by conveying the public health impacts and the tragic loss of biodiversity that is an undeniable result of a changing climate. Climate change is a reality, and instead of fighting over facts, we need to work together to take action."

As for the so-called facts?

Wolverines and Snowpacks. Michigan is dotted with deep and long lasting snowpacks and has experienced record and near record snowfalls that even the fiercest wolverine would find luxuriant. According to the WOOD TV weather blog in Grand Rapids, Michigan:

Grand Rapids has now gone 98 days with an inch or more of snow on the ground (6th place – 117 is the record).  The airport officially still has 7″ of snow on the ground.  We’d have to go to April 5 to set a record.  Lansing is also at 98 days and should break the record of 101 days set in 1962-63.  Muskegon has set a record for the longest period with a foot or more of snow on the ground at 58 days (old record 57 days in 1979).  Muskegon has 14″ of snow on the ground officially and is at 100 days with an inch or more of snow on the ground (currently 7th longest stretch).  Muskegon has to go to April 4 to set a record.   Grand Rapids is now at 96 consecutive days with 4″ or more of snow on the ground and I think that’s a record.   G.R. did set a record for the most number of days with 20″ or more on the ground at 16 days in February.  The least snow on the ground in February was 17”.  We went 51 days (from 1/24 thru 3/15) with 8” or more of snow on the ground.

The Michigan news, sport and weather MLive website reports,

Detroit and Flint are very close to setting all-time records for total snow in a winter. 

The season snowfall record in Detroit is 93.6 inches way back in 1880-1881. So far Detroit has recorded 90.7 inches of snow, meaning three inches of snow is needed for a new record. Since it is going to be generally colder than normal for the next few weeks at least, I think three inches of snow from here on out is very doable. In fact, average snowfall in Detroit now through April would be 5.2 inches.

The record snowfall in Flint is 82.9 inches back in 1974-1975. Currently Flint has had 81.8 inches of snow this winter. So Flint only needs another 1.2 inches of snow to set a record. That should be pretty easy to do. That should happen by sometime next week. 

Grand Rapids has had its second snowiest winter, but still needs 19.5 inches more snow to set a new record. It will take an awfully snowy pattern to get that amount of snow in Grand Rapids. I doubt that record will fall. 

We've had snow on the ground for a long time, and that provides another type of snowfall record. Flint has had at least one inch of snow on the ground for 95 days straight now, which is by far a new record and increasing every day. That record will probably continue to build for at least another 10 days. Tomorrow Detroit will set its record for most days in a row with at least one inch of snow on the ground.

On the upper peninsula in Michigan here are recent year snowfall totals at Michigan Tech in Houghton -- where residents on the shore of Lake Superior are well on their way to another 200 plus inch year.

2010-Current Snowfall

Winter	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Total Inches
2013-14	2.00	10.75	74.25	55.25	29.00				171.25
2012-13	2.00	18.50	17.75	67.00	51.00	34.50	33.0	2.00	225.75
2011-12	0.00	18.00	24.00	52.50	25.50	10.50	1.50	0.00-	132.00
2010-11	0.00	25.50	32.50	72.00	18.00	12.50	18.00	0.00	178.50

Compare the totals from the last decade of the 19th century when the Wolverine were no doubt more numerous than today.

1890-1899 Snowfall

Winter	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Jan.	Feb.	Mar.	Apr.	May	Total Inches
1899-00	0.00	1.00	42.50	22.00	19.50	13.00	0.00	0.00	100.00
1898-99	1.20	15.30	36.00	30.50	15.00	13.00	0.00	6.50	112.50
1897-98	1.00	13.00	36.50	19.50	20.00	12.00	1.50	0.00	103.50
1896-97	3.00	37.00	16.70	36.50	18.50	12.00	1.50	2.00	127.20
1895-96	2.80	14.00	62.00	29.00	15.80	6.00	8.50	0.00	138.10
1894-95	0.00	29.50	18.30	74.00	9.00	5.25	0.00	1.50	137.55
1893-94	1.00	30.00	48.50	37.00	14.50	23.00	10.00	1.00	165.00
1892-93	0.00	23.00	44.00	24.50	16.50	17.00	13.00	1.00	139.00
1891-92	0.00	31.00	23.00	44.00	18.00	12.50	1.00	0.00	129.50
1890-91	1.00	12.20	12.00	33.00	28.50	22.00	2.50	0.00	111.20

In that era of less atmospheric carbon dioxide, there was nary a 200 inch snowfall to be found and the average snowfall was about a third less.

Alligators and Reproductive Threats. Alligators threatened? Think about it.  Alligators, which can't live in cold weather climates are threatened by supposedly warming climates. Please. How incredibly absurd!

As for alligator populations, National Geographic reports.

The American alligator is a rare success story of an endangered animal not only saved from extinction but now thriving. State and federal protections, habitat preservation efforts, and reduced demand for alligator products have improved the species' wild population to more than one million and growing today.

The hunting party of Beth Trammell of Madison, Miss.,
 caught an alligator on Sept 1, 2013 in Issaquena County. It was
13 feet 5.5 inches (14.1 meters) long and weighed
723.5 pounds (328 kilograms). Photograph by Ricky Flynt/Mississippi
 Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks Dept.

Female alligators average producing 35 eggs per nesting season, which helps to explain the rapid rebound in building sustainable, harvested and managed populations. Just last fall there were record setting alligator catches in Mississippi.

Two record-setting heavyweight alligators were killed by hunters in Mississippi this weekend, just three days into the start of the official gator hunting season. 

One animal, a male, was 13-feet and 6.5-inches (4.13 meters) long and weighed 727 pounds (330 kilograms).
“When we finally got an arrow in him, it took us another two hours to get him up close to the boat,” Dustin Bockman, one of the hunters, told the Associated Press. 

“He broke all the lines we could get in him. Finally we got a snare on him and pulled him up high enough and got a shot on him. All in all, it probably took us four-and-a-half hours to actually catch him from the first time we saw him.” 

The other gator, caught by hunter Beth Trammell, was also a male and measured 13-feet and 5.5-inches (4.1-meters) long and weighed 723.5 pounds (328 kilograms). (See “Giant Crocodile Breaks Size Record.”) 

Both alligators broke the previous weight record of 697.5 pounds (316 kilograms).

Alligators live up to 50 or 60 years. A single alligator can produce a thousand offspring. Imagine if a few of those turn out to be guys instead of gals -- horror of horrors. Life as we know it is in the balance.

Diamondback Terrapin. The University of Maryland diamondback terrapin population precipitously declined over the years, due not to warming trends but over harvesting. People liked eating them too much. The diamondback population is now protected, has stabilized, and is coming back. Their biggest threat is crossing the road.

North Carolina State Wolfpack.  The dorky scientists at National Wildlife Federation cannot seem to even get the origin of the team's mascot correct.

RALEIGH, N.C. -- The “Wolfpack” was first mentioned in association with NC State athletics in 1921, when an anonymous letter-writer to the school newspaper suggested that some of the school’s football players were as “unruly as a pack of wolves.” That season, North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts became a charter member of the Southern Conference, and newspapers began referring to the team as “the Wolfpack.” After a season-opening 21-0 victory over Randolph-Macon, The News and Observer of Raleigh reported that the team was “living up to its newly acquired nickname.”

North Carolina State's live mascot is in fact a dog -- not a wolf at all. Even so, since shorelines constantly shift, the thought that shore dwelling fauna could not adapt to future shifts, whatever the cause, is positively, absolutely and totally ridiculous.

Buckeye Trees Moving North into Michigan.  Poor Ohio State University, losing its beloved buckeye trees moving north in search of more temperate weather. Whoops! They had better rethink that move.

Post by US National Weather Service Gaylord Michigan.

Here in Bozeman, the National Wildlife Federation is producing a master plan for the entire Yellowstone eco-system.  I have a friend, an Ohio State alum, whose yard is flourishing with Buckeye trees. If anyone hasn't notice, the climate here in Montanta is just a tad bit colder than in Ohio. On the other end, the natural range of the tree extends down into Texas, near scorching hot locales like Austin and San Antonio.

The native range of the Ohio Buckeye.

The thought that the Buckeye tree range is being driven from Ohio by changes in temperature is absurd on its face.

God help us all.